1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an input device used with a computer or multimedia equipment, and more particularly to a three-dimensional input device such as a spatial control mouse for providing a higher operability, man-machine interface environment. Additionally, it relates to a spatial motion pattern input system for realizing an extended input function based on the operator's motion pattern by using a three-dimensional input device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the so-called mouse, a pointing device, has been widely used as an input device for a man-machine interface used with computers and various computer-based systems.
With a system using a mouse, the operator moves the mouse on the desk to move the cursor interlocking with the mouse movement to the desired object (an image, a character, etc.) appearing on the display. With the cursor positioned over the desired object on the display, he clicks (or releases) an acknowledge switch called a click button of the mouse to enter data to the system. In this way, the mouse offers a better operability not found with the keyboard.
However, since the conventional mouse must be moved in contact with the operation surface such as a dedicated operation board and, in addition, has a connecting cable between the computer and the mouse, this has impaired the operability seriously. Specifically, the operator has been unable to carry out a pointing operation by allowing an arbitrary distance between the mouse and the control target device such as a computer in a given space or any imaginary plane.
Furthermore, since the mouse movement is restricted to the aforementioned operation surface, the mouse can sense the movements only on the plane and cannot spatial movements. Therefore, it is difficult to perform a pointing operation reflecting the spatial mouse movements.
Taking the situation into account, such a three-dimensional input device (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 3-192423) has recently been developed as a spatial control mouse which senses the operator's three-dimensional movements to enable pointer operation in any plane and even spatial pointer operation, thereby allowing the operator to move the pointer easily even if he is away from the computer, the multimedia device, or their display unit.
With a system using the three-dimensional input device, however, a pointing operation is mostly effected as follows. The operator moves the three-dimensional input device in space to move the cursor interlocking with the movement of the input device to the desired object on the screen, and then presses (or releases) the click button to acknowledge or select the object.
Other systems (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 4-7726 and Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 4-180119) have been proposed which can execute a function allocated to each pattern by moving a conventional mouse on the operation surface to draw a specific pattern.
With those systems, however, since the mouse must be moved on the operation surface, only simple patterns can be drawn. Furthermore, it is relatively difficult to draw a specific pattern neatly on the operation surface. Thus, by the pattern matching method, the patterns drawn by the operator sometimes cannot be recognized.